Pay Stub Lawyer – Employers are required by law to keep accurate records of what they pay their employees. If they don’t, it’s hard to prove overtime or minimum wage violations because no evidence exists. Thus, CA has passed strict record-keeping requirements. If employers don’t abide by them, they may be hit with stiff penalties that are awarded to the affected employees. This is a very ripe area of employment law. If you’re a victim, contact an experienced employment attorney as soon as you can.
Wage Statement Basics in California
Employers are supposed to provide their employees with pay stubs on each payday. Each pay stub must include an accurate itemized statement in writing showing
- gross wages earned,
- total hours worked by the employee, except for any employee whose compensation is solely based on a salary and who is exempt from payment of overtime,
- all deductions, provided that all deductions made on written orders of the employee may be aggregated and shown as one item,
- net wages earned,
- the dates of the period for which the employee is being paid,
- the name of the employee and the last four digits of his or her social security number or an employee identification number,
- the name and address of the legal entity that is the employer,
- all applicable hourly rates in effect during the pay period and the corresponding number of hours worked at each hourly rate by the employee, and
- (if the employee is paid on a piece-rate basis) the number of piece-rate units earned and any applicable piece rate.
If your employer has failed to provide you with a pay stub, or has failed to include all of the above items, you should contact a lawyer to see what your legal rights include.
More Pay Stub Information
The deductions made from payment of wages shall be recorded in ink or other indelible form, properly dated, showing the month, day, and year, and a copy of the statement and the record of the deductions shall be kept on file by the employer for at least three years.
An employer must allow current and former employees the right to inspect or copy records pertaining to their employment, upon a reasonable request to the employer. An employer who receives a written or oral request to inspect or copy records must comply within 21 days.
An employee suffering injury as a result of a knowing and intentional failure by an employer to comply with the pay stub requirements is entitled to recover the greater of all actual damages or fifty dollars ($50) for the initial pay period in which a violation occurs and one hundred dollars ($100) per employee for each violation in a subsequent pay period, not exceeding an aggregate penalty of four thousand dollars ($4,000), and is entitled to an award of costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.
If you add that to a few other wage and hour violations, such as rest break violations, unpaid overtime, or meal break violations, that number could hit $100,000 with ease. That might motivate you to contact us.
A failure by an employer to permit a current or former employee to inspect or copy records entitles the current or former employee to recover a seven-hundred-fifty-dollar ($750) penalty from the employer.
When employers fail to keep the above records it makes it difficult to prove how much you are owed. If your employer has failed to produce these records to you, or failed to make them in the first place, contact us.